SATURDAY: From "suspected" to "obviously" MS-13!

SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2025

Transformation performed by The Five: Friend, was Kilmar Abrego Garcia ever an affiliate of MS-13?

At this site, we can't answer your question. Neither could Judge Wilkinson in his recent ruling. 

Yesterday, the New York Times published its first full-length attempt to ponder the basic facts of this widely debated case. The report hasn't appeared in print editions—but midway along, it says this:

The Story of the ‘Mistakenly Deported Maryland Man’

[...]

Whether Mr. Abrego is an MS-13 gang member—as, with equal vehemence, the Trump administration insists and his family denies—remains unclear.

“Perhaps, but perhaps not,” wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a conservative jurist on a federal appeals court in Virginia, pondering whether Mr. Abrego Garcia was a gang member.

“Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.” 

Judge Wilkinson didn't try to say whether Abrego Garcia is or was a gang affiliate. In his recent ruling, he said that isn't the legal/constitutional question at this point in time. 

At present, the legal/constitutional question involves the "mistaken deportation" cited in the New York Times headline. For the record, that "mistaken deportation" wasn't exactly a "deportation" at all.

It was actually a consignment to a brutal foreign prison, quite possibly for life. That isn't a standard "deportation," but we humans aren't good with our words. 

Imperfect headline to the side, the Times report includes new information about certain aspects of Abrego Garcia's years in the United States. 

For us, the report also raises new questions. We have no idea what a thorough examination might reveal in the end.

Question! According to the Times report, Abrego Garcia's older brother had already come to the United States before the younger brother did. 

According to the Times report, the older brother "is now an American citizen and a licensed electrician in Maryland." According to the Times report., the younger brother and his wife would join him for "the occasional outing on [the older brother's] boat."

Question! Why didn't the younger brother ever seek citizenship, as the older brother had successfully done? We don't have the slightest idea—and the Times report doesn't attempt to say. 

Along the way, the Times report includes an unexplained note about the occasion in 2022 when the younger brother came under suspicion for a possible act of human trafficking:

The Story of the ‘Mistakenly Deported Maryland Man’

[...] 

According to records released last month by the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Abrego Garcia notified immigration officials in late October 2022 that he wanted to move to Houston to be closer to his parents. Just five weeks later, he was driving back to Maryland—with eight passengers—when a highway patrol officer in Tennessee pulled him over for speeding.

In Homeland Security’s version of the trooper’s account, Mr. Abrego Garcia explained that he had left Houston three days earlier and was transporting people in his boss’s car to work in construction in Maryland. But there was no luggage, and the passengers all gave Mr. Abrego Garcia’s home address as their own—leading one officer to suspect the possibility of human trafficking.

In the end, Mr. Abrego Garcia was let off with a warning citation for driving with an expired license.

The Times report doesn't mention the recent reports which say that Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle which belonged to someone who had served time for human smuggling. Meanwhile, we're puzzled by the highlighted statement, which is attributed to the Department of Homeland Security:

Abrego Garcia said "he wanted to move to Houston to be closer to his parents." 

Aren't his parents still in El Salvador? How would moving to Houston have made him closer to them? 

The Times report doesn't attempt to speak to that question. That new bit of information simply sits there, unexplained, in the lengthy report.

The Times report includes some pieces of new information. It doesn't answer, or pretend to answer, the basic question which seems to lie at the heart of the current dispute:

Is Abrego Garcia a member of MS-13? Was he ever an affiliate of that violent gang? 

Judge Wilkinson didn't pretend to know, and neither does the New York Times. Within an organization like the Fox News Channel, other influential people will take a different approach.

Those other people will pretend that these questions have been settled! Yesterday, the propaganda program known as The Five opened with co-host Jesse Watters reading this from prompter. We highlight one key word:

WATTERS (5/2/25): ...It's 5 o'clock in New York City, and this is The Five.

The Democrats are looking dumber by the day as they refuse to admit they were dead wrong about their precious "Maryland man," no matter how many disturbing details we find about Kilmar Abrego Garcia's violent past as a suspected MS-13 member...

That was Watters, at 5 o'clock sharp. He continued along from there. 

But right there, at the start of the program, Abrego Garcia was described as a suspected gang member. That disclaimer may have been ordered by legal. We have no idea.

At the start of the program, at 5 o'clock sharp, Abrego Garcia was a suspected gang member. This being Fox, you know what happened next:

Just like that, with lightning seed, the disclaimer disappeared. 

By 5:04, co-host Greg Gutfeld was angrily describing Abrego Garcia as a "wife-beating gangbanger," full stop. "If you want to find a scumbag," Gutfeld said as he continued, "just look for the Democrat who is defending him." 

Democrats were scumbags—and Abrego Garcia was a gangbanger. Just like that, within four minutes, uncertainty had been disappeared. 

By 5:07, Judge Jeanine had launched her standard rant about the reason why Abrego Garcia had feared a return to El Salvador back in 2019.

In the face of withering criticism for her endless misrepresentations, the judge no longer claims that Abrego Garcia's fear was based upon his fear of "a rival gang," Barrio 18.

During the 2019 court hearing, Abrego Garcia did express fear about possible violence by Barrio 18. But he never described Barrio 18 as a rival gang, and he never said that he'd ever belonged any gang at all.

In his written opinion, Judge David Jones described what he'd been told by Abrego Garcia himself, but also by his family members in El Salvador. Judge Jones said he found Abrego Garcia's testimony to be credible and consistent. You will never learn such facts by watching Judge Jeanine as she angrily presents her endless misrepresentations.

Judge Jeanine has stopped using the term "rival gang." That said, she still proceeds without any mention of what Judge Jones was actually told and what he actually said. 

In her angry rants, Judge Jeanine routinely erases what actually happened at that hearing. In a more rational world, no one would dream of placing a person like Judge Jeanine on the nation's most-watched "cable news" TV show.

Full disclosure! Before she was done, the perpetually furious Judge Jeanine had broken in with this plea for the death of due process:

JUDGE JEANINE (5/2/25):  Barack Obama deported three million illegals. Eighty-seven percent of them didn't have a hearing. So all of a sudden, when it's Donald Trump, let's get some new rights out there.

We can't vouch for those numbers. But the vast majority of those deportations were, in fact, real deportations. They weren't renditions to a brutal foreign prison, quite possibly for life, on the basis of a set of claims which have never been examined or established in court.

The judge is happy to ship a suspected person off to such a fate—to do so in the face of a prevailing court order and without a hint of due process. She persistently misrepresents what happened in the hearing before Judge Jones.  

Before this TV show was done, the gorillas had sent the term "suspected" far off into the mist. By 5:08, Judge Jeanine was performing the clown show about the obvious meaning of the tattoos on the suspect's knuckles.

By now, though, Abrego Garcia was no longer "suspected." Here's what the children now said:

JUDGE JEANINE: He has all the tats for MS-13, whether it is marijuana, the skull, the smiley face or the cross. He is MS-13, all right? This guy...he's an MS-13 gangbanger!...This guy is a dirtbag, and if you take his side—you know, if you lie in the grass with dogs, you'll come up with fleas. And that's where the Democrats are.

WATTERS:  This guy...is obviously MS-13.

From "suspected" to "obviously" in only eight minutes! Transformation completed!

By now, it seems fairly clear that Abrego Garcia engaged in domestic violence on at least several occasions within the past five years. On a program like The Five, we're told by a tag-team of messaging agents that life imprisonment in a gulag is the appropriate punishment for that (apparent) conduct.

A standing court order can be ignored—in fact, the violation of that court order won't even be mentioned! Judge Wilkinson notwithstanding, due process should be left behind!

We humans aren't especially good with our words. We start by describing a rendition to a brutal prison as a "deportation." After disappearing the one judge, Fox News sends in the other.

Initially, the person in question was merely "suspected." With that possible bow to legality noted, the beasts came out to play.